Avoiding the “Latin Bin”: Iceland

People in Iceland are growing concern about the death of their native language. Tourism is a main job source for their economy, their largest employer by far, and over half the jobs are filled by foreigners while the rest of the jobs do not use the native language. Technology is another issue with most imported devices using English for the interface. These factors have led to children not getting an exposure to Icelandic leading to a drop in comprehension. In the 19th century there was a public outcry for the preservation of their native language occurred when Danish began having a larger influence on the language. Moving forward it will be interesting to see if the Icelandic people manage to maintain their cultural language or if it will be replaced for the more global languages.